


Of Fire Metaphors

by GayerThanATreeFullOfMonkeys



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Mentions of Death, Symbolism, but still fluffy, kind of, prose, ridiculously fluffy for my tastes but here ya go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 09:56:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2020695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GayerThanATreeFullOfMonkeys/pseuds/GayerThanATreeFullOfMonkeys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire watches Enjolras burn down the world and wonders how his beloved community will view him when he's dead and gone, lost fighting for people who haven't heard of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Fire Metaphors

**Author's Note:**

> I was looking through some old, half finished one shots that I've written and this one was the most complete so here you go darlings!
> 
> EDIT: I now have a fandom blog!! Come talk to me at crossroadsbela.tumblr.com!! I'd love to hear from you guys!

Sometimes Grantaire wonders about what will happen when he and Enjolras die (because of course they will die young and with signs for equality in their hands and of course it will be together that they go). 

No, he does not wonder about heaven or hell (although he does enjoy the idea of E as an avenging angel and him as a demon, hellbent on having the angel for himself, on occasion).

More like, he thinks about how the biographers will fight over the story of Enjolras. 

How could they not? 

A young, passionate, beautiful revolutionary.

A man who handed out flowers to the civilians and snarked and spat at cops. 

He was a gorgeous mess, even alive he was just waiting to be a historical figure that teenagers would take a sick interest in years from now. 

Watching him now, surrounded by their friends as he and Courfeyrac fought over which movie to watch R thinks that even the most dedicated biographer would get Enjolras wrong. How could they not? Hell, even Grantaire had had him wrong for so long. He had seen beauty and passion and a light that made him want to shut his eyes. He had only seen Apollo. Bright as the sun and just as far away.

But now he understood, now he could watch E at times like this, now he could smile and wrap an arm around the blonde's waist and no one would start yelling. Now he glanced over and saw the quiet things floating to the surface in Enjolras' eyes and he understood. 

The people who tried to understand Enjolras after he was gone though? R had no hope for them. They would only see the pictures and the recordings and the man made of fire and idealism. They would see the Apollo that Grantaire had first fallen in love with. Those people would never, could never hope to understand the real Enjolras. They would never see the softness, the fire simmering down to glowing embers. Those people would never be able to watch him laugh with Cosette and Marius or listen in on him telling Joly that none of them ever had or ever would judge him. Those poor souls would never get to look at him, finally relaxed now that Combeferre had come home, the two friends half asleep, limbs tangled up together on the couch. They didn't get to watch him get drunk off his ass with Eponine and stagger over to Grantaire to mutter something about taking him to bed in his ear. R felt sorry for those unfortunate people who would never be able to see the truth of this man. This man that he loved, this man who was like fire. 

Jehan was always telling him to stop with the fire metaphors. "They were insightful at first R but eventually it becomes redundant."

"He is fire though." The artist replies, they were watching Enjolras make a speech about bringing the power back to the people at a college campus, he had the audience enthralled, eyes flickering over his every move, the fall of his long hair, the wide sweeping of his hands. "Going to burn down the world with all of those good intentions of his." This was near to the beginning, when R was still in love with Apollo, still pining over a man that was untouchable, still holding Enjolras at arms length with cynical remarks and biting comments. 

The poet turned to stare at him, expression hard and eyes soft, a juxtaposition, but than that was Jehan in a nutshell. "Don't make such a broad statement about a symbol as important as fire. It destroys yes, but it creates as well, it was the start of everything for the human race, it kept people alive more often than it killed them." 

He had turned to look at Enjolras again and for the first time noticed him staring back and Grantaire smiled. "See you later Jehan." He said, striding through the crowd to get to Enjolras just as he finished his speech and stepped down from the podium.

"I so called it." Jehan scoffed, turned around to go look for Eponine because she now owed him 20 bucks. 

Grantaire wondered what these future biographers would think of him when they dived into the records of Enjolras, the notes and the paintings, the emails and the doodles, the photos and the recordings of laughter and close ups on green eyes and black curls. 

He imagines that they would call him The Cynic, The Artist, The Lover, Enjolras' opposite, his shadow, the dead weight clinging to his coat tails as he rose into heaven. 

It would be a cliched, small minded way of looking at him but R cannot deny that in the broad sense it would be true. He is almost glad that he would be delegated to a few sentences at most in the life of Enjolras because the rest of it? The rest of this crazed, complex relationship? That belongs to him. 

No one else will ever have access to these moments. No one but Grantaire gets to see E sitting up in bed at noon, brushing his long blonde tangles and watching 24 hour news programming just to have something to rant about. No one else got to take him apart, first with words than with other things. No one else could turn Apollo into a quivering, needy mess with a strangled "hurry it up R" on his lips. No one else got to hold him as he slept, no one else got to steal blankets from him and then be promptly pushed out of bed. 

No one else had a key to their bedroom. That secret world of warmth and pillows. That place where the fighting stopped and they just became E and R.

Sometimes Grantaire wonders what will happen when they die. He wonders about what the people of the future will say and won't say about them. But then he glances to his left and sees the figure beside him and stops wondering. It doesn't matter what some shadowy figures from the future will say because right now he is here and Enjolras is next to him and all the words in every biography and every blog do not matter because right now they were alive and that was the only thing worth caring about.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed, comment and let me know your thoughts!


End file.
